by Stan Galanski
Just as America was recovering from the shock and horror of the senseless slaughter that took place on the campus of Virginia Tech, the newspaper headlines captured another stunning murder of an innocent by a madman at the Houston Space Center. Once again, a handgun was used in the killing. This time, the gun was easily carried in past security guards.
It is time for America's love affair with handguns to end. President Clinton made a laudable effort to eliminate the proliferation of handguns following the massacre at Columbine High School, but his cure was viewed as too radical. Instead, over the last eight years, we have witnessed the ongoing degeneration of American culture that idolizes gangsta rappers who wave their handguns as they cavort with scantily clad women on what are referred to as "music" videos. We continue to cheer for professional sports teams with stars who have been suspended because of criminal behavior associated with handguns and assault weapons. It's not just that we have failed to make progress since Columbine, but that things are dramatically worse. Handgun related crime has further increased since that time and people have simply shrugged their shoulders and refuse to be outraged by the pathetic situation we find ourselves in today.
In the week prior to the killings at Virginia Tech, our country proudly rallied public opinion against the ignorant and bigoted remarks of a blowhard talk-radio show host. For years, Don Imus contributed to the intellectual degeneration of talk radio by insulting a wide array or minority groups, from Hispanics to fat people. It took what, by Imus' standards, was a relatively modest racial slur against a group of innocents, to trigger a mass public outcry leading to his dismissal by CBS.
How many more innocents must die before there is a public outcry that demands that handguns be made illegal? We can spend years debating the need to change behavior, for stronger parental involvement, to provide proactive counseling to the mentally ill and to increase security in schools, but that debate won't stop handgun crime. The only effective way to eliminate death from handgun-related crime is to prohibit the ownership of handguns and make possession of a handgun a felony that carries with it a significant mandatory minimum prison sentence.
We Americans express shock and the inability to comprehend the mindset of
the suicide bombers in Iraq. Our suicide bombers in the United States
carry handguns, not bombs. If the events of April 2007 can't stir the
American public to act now, we deserve to suffer the consequences. I urge
you to take a stand today by writing to Congressman Chris Shays and our
two U.S. Senators in support of the elimination of handguns. It is time
for Americans to be outraged and to take a stand.
Stan Galanski is a Ridgefield resident and is a member of the Ridgefield Democratic Town Committee.